Hey guys,
I am getting very close to finishing up my first armor build, Tamiya’s M60A1 w/ reactive armor.
I am adding some of the stuff into the basket behind the turret (spare road wheels, etc) and Tamiya’s typically flawless instructions fail to call out the color the jerry cans are supposed to be. Any help here? Thanks
Depends on the style of cans and time frame you’re modeling. Old style metal cans are most often some shade of OD, the newer plastic cans could be either black or a very pink sand. I believe the newest plastic cans are only sand, but I’ve been out of the service for about 14 years so the new ones may come in other colors as well.
This would be DS era…1990-1991.
So black or sand?
My outfit had M1A1’s during DS.The old style cans(three handles) were used for motor oil and mogas. The motor oil cans were solid OD and the mogas cans were OD with red handles and the top two inches or so of the can painted red. The newer style cans(one handle with a pour spout and air hole) were mostly black with a few sand and some black cans painted sand. They were used almost exclusively for water. Your M60 would almost certainly have two motor oil cans on board, one for 30 weight and one for 10 weight. They may or may not be marked, on my old 60 back in the day we marked them with small white lettering on the opposite side of the opening. They were almost always carried in the bustle rack and the water can was on the turret side in the water can rack. That’s not a hard and fast rule though as things can vary widely even in the same unit.
I don’t recall seeing any sand-colored cans in my outfit back then, I think they started coming into the system around 93, but we did have gobs of the black water cans… Made for a nice hot shower from the bucket hangin’ off the gun tube… Fuel cans were all metal, varying shades of dark green and OD, mogas was marked in white letters “MOGAS”, diesel/JP-8 cans were unmarked.
We’ve had the black (older) or sand (late 80s and beyond) plastic water cans back then. The cans that come with the M60A1 kit were the plastic type. During Desert Storm, either color could be acceptable, but most likely sand ones. The sand color was really almost a pinkish flesh colored plastic. They switched over from black because as the sun beat down on black plastic, your drinking water in the 5 gallon can became hot.
Some units painted the sand colored plastic black to match the older style water cans. As you can see in this photo taken during 1988, the two water cans on the side of the turret were originally sand colored but painted black by the crew. The paint has chipped off the cans and the sand plastic is visible.
Rob, is that you back in the day? where was the picture taken?
At a range in Grafenwoehr, Germany. Yes, that is me in the hatch. I know it is 1988 since my tank had the original name I gave it, Black Jack (my tank was #21). Another lieutenant asked me if he could have that name and I eventually changed the tank name to Wild One in 1989.